The Genius Bars at Apple Stores may one day offer a wireless backup service to help customers who need on-the-spot work on, or replacement of, their iOS device, but for one reason or another were unable to backup before coming into the store. With many iOS devices being mission-critical, this service could be a blessing for multitudes of customers.
Apple Store Front
According to sources at 9to5Mac, the service is being worked on at Apple’s secret Apple Store lab near its headquarters where ideas for changes and improvements to the retail experience are developed. A wireless server system would be able to temporarily backup customers data in an automatic, secure way.
Imagine a customer with a broken iPhone that needs to be replaced. The customer is traveling and hasn’t backed up their device in days, and of course there is critical information on the phone that has been added during the trip.
A store with this wireless server system would be able to essentially perform an iCloud backup, but to the local system. Once the new iPhone is setup, the Apple Genius would be able to restore the data, and in the process it would automatically be wiped from the store’s server. The backup service would be available for any iOS device.
With iCloud available for backups, it might seem unnecessary to provide this service, but it’s being looked at as a way to increase the throughput of customers. It’s simply faster to backup to a local system than it is to backup to a distant service.
The sources say this service could be available starting in mid-2013. However, it is still a test project and may not ever be implemented. This benefit would not be intended to replace regular backups by users to their own systems or services.